Eduardo González
The Government has awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic to the commissioner general of the United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini.
The concession has been approved by the Government at the proposal of the Minister of Foreign Affairs “in consideration of the merits and circumstances of Mr. Philippe Lazzarini”, as published yesterday in the Official State Gazette.
Philippe Lazzarini made a working visit to Spain on March 7, in which he was received by King Felipe VI, by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, and by the Second Vice President and Minister of Labor and Social Economy, Yolanda Diaz,
During his meeting with Albares, the minister announced a new contribution from Spain of 20 million euros to support the organization “in its crucial humanitarian work in Gaza and meet the food, educational and health needs of almost six million Palestinian refugees in the region,” despite the decision of a group of countries to freeze their contributions after a dozen agency employees (out of a staff of 30,000) were accused of having participated in the Hamas attacks of October 7.
These twenty million join the 3.5 million approved a few days before by the Council of Ministers. According to Albares, the work of UNRWA is “irreplaceable” and, in the current context of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, it is “literally a matter of life or death for the more than two million people who live there.” For his part, Lazzarini highlighted that the new contribution of 20 million euros represents “a clear message to other countries so that they are aware of the indispensable work carried out by UNRWA and contribute to the agency again.”
Both Albares and the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, visited two UNRWA camps during their recent visits to Jordan, as part of their tours to the Middle East to address the situation in the region, and more specifically in the Gaza Strip.
For almost seven decades, UNRWA has been responsible for guaranteeing access to education, health, humanitarian aid and social services to the 5.9 million Palestinian refugees (almost a quarter of the world’s refugee population) hosted in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (the Gaza Strip and the West Bank). To carry out its work, UNRWA is financed almost entirely by voluntary contributions from UN Member States. For its part, the Spanish UNRWA Committee’s main objectives are to give visibility to the situation of Palestine refugees and mobilize both citizens and public and private institutions to help them.
